Moving Up, Moving Out

Things are going well, in an exhausting kind of way. We are almost completely moved out of our city apartment. The new apartment is in an “all american” small town, the town I grew up in. There is an interesting mix of people who never left and have grown up and had their own kids there, and people who have moved there recently. We’ve been taking little moments out in between our moving runs back in forth, to explore it.

I think we’re moving back at an exciting time. Lots of small businesses have cropped up in the center of town. It seems that the small town I couldn’t move fast enough out of has started to embrace the arts community. But in the form of little boutiques, shops and even a gallery! I actually already sell my work in one of it’s shops and do quite well there. 

This has also been exciting because for the first time in 15 years I will be close to my family. My Mom helped us move today and she was so excited. She loved the new place and seemed to (for the first time in…ever) see what I saw in the potential of things. She saw the attic space and agreed yes, this would turn into a great office for my little business and that I should refinish it. She said yes, she thought the idea of putting in a shop that sold vintage clothes, and my jewelry made from vintage components (and wings around Halloween of course!) in town was a great idea. That even trying to be more a part of local community was a good idea too! When I told her that Matt and I started collecting vintage pieces and have already successfully sold an item she was supportive. When I told her the first thing that sold was her old wedding dress from her second marriage (she hated the ex and the dress) she laughed! “That old thing sold for that much!?! I don’t even think I paid that much for it new!”  She also told me how excited the rest of my extended family was to know I was going to be closer. It feels good.

I think my father is excited I will be closer too. But I am not entirely sure about that. He was hard to read about it. The conversation went into a weird direction where he said he thought I was gay or bi. Long story short, my kid sister misinterpretted something I posted on Facebook. Being the excitable judgey people my Dad and stepmom are (she was not present for this), he drew his own conclusions that he might need to have a talk with me. I said “wait you’re talking to me???” He said yeah. I felt myself turning red form embarrassment. NO! I said. I have had moments of experiment in my early 20’s. But LOL, gay is something I am 100% NOT. I am a big supporter of the LGBT community and have been since I was a teenager. But I am not a lesbian. I wouldn’t even goes as far to say bisexual either. I’m a straight girl who loves men. And my boyfriend. Who was sitting next to me, wondering why this was happening. I told him No. You are mistaken. And then felt very uncomfortable the rest of the time I was there. How did my own father not know that about me? Why was there even a need to have the conversation? It’s pissed me off all week long. I’m sure I was being oversensitive about it. But it always seems like when I feel like ok, my Dad is FINALLY proud of me something else comes along and makes me want to hate him again. Now it’s this.

Regardless of my father finding more fault with me, true or not, I am still happy. I think this move is going to be a fresh start. I am hoping that this middle part of my life is the part where things become a little more put together.  

The Good and Bad of It

So things have taken an interesting twist. We are no where near out of the woods yet with our commercial space hiccup. I am sending back their keys and a letter via certified mail in hopes of them acknowledging us. Still no contact form anyone on their management team. I did however find 2 small flaws that might save us should we have to go to court. 1) in the email with the lease they said they will print for us to sign if we are ok with it. IF. I immediately responded with a list of things for them to fix in it. 2) they didn’t put the correct name of my business in it.  So wouldn’t that make it void?

In the panic of all this gallery no gallery drama, the Smoker and I made a very important decision. We decided to look for an apartment we can move into by the 1st. We found one! A great one! We just passed their application process and are about to drop the lease and payment to them tomorrow! I am beyond thrilled. It is a townhouse apartment with a bedroom full bath and attic upstairs and a nice sized kitchen, living room, closets and bath room downstairs. We’re right near the laundry facility on premises and this will be the first time ever in my adult life I will have central air and a dishwasher! Ugh, a dishwasher…. it’s like fucking music to my ears. I have truly reached middle age knowing my body gets more excited about a machine that washes dishes then of my boyfriend and I being able to have regular sex again now that we’ll be back under the same roof!

This place oddly enough is my old hometown. A small but sweet place where a lot of my past lives. I had prayed to the soul of the grandma who raised me in that town to help me find the right place and answer for my problem. In all honesty I never thought we would get approved for such a nice place. But we did!

There was a long time where I wanted to erase who I was. But now, all I can think is how excited I am to have a nice place to live in a great town full of family and old friends.  A town that also is lacking in vintage and vintage made items. There is a small antique shop with a few boutiques gaining popularity now. So I think phase 2 of my plan will be to build up my credit and bring my collections, handiwork and city know how to my town and find the right place to open a shop there. I bet people will be so curious to see me again after being gone for about 15 years, it would be an instant hit!

In an ironic twist, after finding out we are getting this fab apartment, I got a summons for jury duty. It was as if the universe was sending me a little wink of acknowledgement. We do you a solid, you do us a solid. Fair is fair. I guess it’s the least I can do in exchange for NOT being homeless! 🙂

Failing Spectacularly

I can’t even believe this is happening. I have barely been sleeping. Or working on anything I need to be getting paid for. Just sitting here and panicking. Trying to get to the next moment where maybe I won’t panic, then panic again. My stupid white girl problems are exploding and fucking my shit all up for the umpteenth time!

So still no word from management. We have let him know we need our security deposit back. The crazy artist bitch client sent me a very weird and accusatory email about my wanting to quit and how could I do that to her at such a crucial time. She says I victimized her and why would I tell the landlord she did that to my floors without discussing it with her first. Three pages of email with every paragraph ending in why didn’t I come to her first. But the thing is, I did come to her first. Over and over. She is refusing to pay me the last payment for all of the work i put in. She said I owed her more time. At this point I would have made around $5 an hour or LESS for all the work I have put in to date. What was suppose to be a few weeks of helping has become this “salaried position” where I am paid $700 for about 3 months of work. Bullshit.

The Smoker is choosing to ignore everything as much as he can. More reason for my panic. 

I contacted some online law forums. I even paid for one of those ask a lawyer sessions. It’s not looking good. We didn’t sign the lease yet, but we gave them a deposit and took the keys. We took the fucking keys. And that one action might be our undoing. Every lawyer said taking the keys might be seen as a commitment to carry out the lease. That they might be able to keep our entire security deposit because of it. They may even be able to charge for as much as a whole year’s rent.

If that’s the case, I’m fucked. No gallery. No place to live. No business location. I still have to be out of here at the end of the month ON TOP of all this shit. 

I am so embarrassed. And depressed. In a very different way. I told everyone we were doing this. And yet again I look like some bullshit loser who can’t get this shit together. AGAIN.

 

 

Reality Sets In

Things have gone from hopeful to shit once more. Why I don’t trust my instincts, what the world is trying to give me, bring me, show me – is beyond me. I must be a glutton for punishment. I must be desperate and sad. I knew this was coming and I fucking did it anyway.

So, last time I posted I was thrilled and nervous over the possibility of a shop / office and gallery space for my business. Things were looking up. I was really doing it. Even my mom said she was proud of me.

The Smoker and I put a deposit on the place. We were going to sign the lease, but the landlord didn’t have it written up yet. So we said, oh, we’ll come back. No problem. 

In two days time all of this happened. It started with that same boss / client of mine. The one that felt like a con artist. She has a space above the one we were looking into. She has been refinishing the floors. Some of the glue has been dripping from her floors, through the cracks into our soon to be floors. The agreement was suppose to be that we would add dry wall to the ceiling for a super cheap rent. We all sat in a room. Management said to her you have to put something down on the floor, our floor. She said Oh I thought you would put drop cloths in there. Than manager said, oh I thought you were doing that. She says something to the effect No, but you know what, I have pieces of old billboards I paint on. I can put some of those down to make sure nothing drips down. 

We go into the space last night to measure, start purchasing some of the materials so when April came the money wouldn’t hit us so hard. We walk into the space and there is tar, dried wood glue all the SHIT all over the fucking floors. No drop cloths or billboards. Just shit everywhere. Including on the old piano I was so excited to inherit in our space. I am enraged. The Smoker starts trying to scrape it up. He’s mad too. What the fuck! He says. I storm out of there.

The Smoker and I talk. He says calm down before you call. I don’t. We are generally anxious nervous people. But sometimes my anger comes and I can’t stop it once I am pushed over that final brink. I am enraged because this is just one more thing. The final fucking thing that put me over the edge with this woman. I have been working for her since December. I assisted her in this fucking project that she has been putting together that just felt like even more dishonest con artist shit. I started to feel like a piece of shit, helping her do all of HER work. She wanted this business. She asked me to help her put it together. More and more it felt like I was doing everything while she sat around and did nothing. And that’s exactly what it became. Every word out of her mouth was bullshit. I realized I was helping her con the shit out of people via Craigslist. I tried to believe it wasn’t really happening. Now I see how fucking blind by being broke I was. She has been using me for everything.

And in this moment I exploded! I had been taken advantage of since Christmas and I was too fucking stupid to pick up on the fact that I was being conned too. The fucking floor. The whole place. It was a nightmare. I started doing the math. I would be spending over 2,000 to fix the ceiling, I was suppose to fix the counter tops, the bathroom was a mess. EVERYTHING IN THERE WOULD NEED TO BE REDONE! I grabbed The Smoker’s phone and called her. Fuck it, I told him. This is happening. He just stared at me.

I asked her why the floor hadn’t been covered and she lied to me. She’s one of those people that is very quick talking and doesn’t really shut up. I had to fight to get a single word in, even in normal conversations. This was worse. It infuriated me further. She said Oh you need to call the manager. They said they were going to cover it. Don’t you remember? I wasn’t suppose to they were. You better call them in the morning. Yeah not me. You have to talk to them. She said it over and over to me. The same sentences. I said ok. I knew full well she was lying. I just said it to shut her up. My plan was to call management and tell them there was no way in Hell I was living below this woman. She started to change the subject to business. Why was I so mad that she took the thing she had me work on alllllll weekend long and trashed it? Why was I so mad that she was trying to get the client and CREDIT CARD INFO of my fucking personal clients! Then she started telling me that I don’t have the right to be mad. I started to yell at her. Tell her how full of shit she was and I wasn’t going to fuck work with her anymore. She Immediately talked over me. telling me I didn’t really feel that way. Twisting it. I hung up on her. I fumed.

The Smoker sat there stunned. What just happened? He asked. I told him the whole thing. He was just like woah, what? Credit cards, personal info?!? One of the clients whose info she wanted was The Smokers mothers’. She is a client of mine, a doctor with a very lucrative practice. I refused to give her any info. I refused to sign any contracts. As it was, she was awful about paying me. It had gotten worse and worse, I had been swearing up and down the past two weeks that I would stop working for her after I got the last payment… She still owes me $300.

We both realized we were fucked. We just put a deposit down on this place… this fucking dump. Because of her and below her. She had talked us into it. Really to serve her own purposes since I hadn’t been taking her calls anymore. I realize that now. 

So now I have to figure something else out and fast. 

I have given the notice to my landlord on my place. He hasn’t rented it yet. But has informed me he has raised the rent for the next tenant. We also NEVER signed the lease for the retail space. I am expecting this guy to pull some serious punches on us and try not to give us the deposit back. Things aren’t sitting well with me. Neither of us have been able to reach this guy. I have sent THREE emails now, The Smoker has called and left messages. My fear is that this guy won’t give us the deposit back. Then i am truly truly fucked.

I feel like and idiot failure right now. This is my biggest dream to have a shop and work space. I saw what I wanted to in it. This space is a dirty dingy hole. The outside is now covered in dog shit, which we couldn’t see before because of the snow still covering. Along with all the needles and crack pipes. The side of the building someone wrote Fuck drug dealers that make you wait. We couldn’t see that with the snow before either. New England and it’s fucking 30 inches of snow that is still melting.

When I took this client, it had come from Craigslist. I am someone who has found a lot of work through CL. But when I talked to her and started working with her I had a very distinct dream. I dreamed that it was spring. That we had gone in on some sort of place of business together. Something bad happened having to do with money. She is screaming in my face. I have this feeling, this panicky fucked up feeling. I end up in court with her and some people she knows. It’s long and horrible. I remember waking up from the dream and thinking, good thing I am just assisting temporarily. I even told the Smoker about it. I had forgotten about my warning dream until this week. Even my subconscious was begging me not to work with her.

All day I have been nervous upset and intermittenly crying. I have no idea how I am going to find somewhere that I can live and work out of. How I am going to find a place to live period. Or salvage my dignity when I have to admit this happened to everyone I told about my soon to be retail space. I even questioned if this was really happening, was this woman that bad.

I was on Facebook before going to WordPress to post. I created an FB page for that awful woman’s project. She had a big meeting with all the web designers she’s been talking into helping her. I was suppose to be there to assist. I sent her an email saying I was quitting instead. Per my usual self I felt guilt and failure. I always assume it’s me. Then I saw it. ANGRY facebook posts from the people in her meeting. Calling her a con artist. Trying to use them and make money off their backs for her own good. One said Stop applying your gifts to take advantage of local people. Your actions are predatory and disgusting.   In this…. I felt vindicated. But in relaity, I still have no where to go, no deposit money and nothing for my business.

 

Overwhelmed, Over Tired, Over Sensitive

My little Libra ways are becoming cumbersome yet again. I am having trouble maintaining a balance and getting everything done on time. The stress of everything, keeping up with work, packing up my place, planning for my business to move into it’s first retail space and creating a gallery within that, trying to take care of my Diabetes and self. It’s so much. I am exhausted. 

Right now it’s 3:30 in the morning. I have been waiting up for The Smoker to come back. He works nights once or twice a week. Tonight’s a late one. I just want to sleep. But he should be here soon. I’m so tired I don’t even know if what I am typing is making sense. 

I don’t know what I can do to make this time less stressful. I guess i took on too much. I’ll have to start pulling some things back. I knew this was going to happen too. It’s the nature of the retail business. There are trends in timing. March things start to pick up again. Tax return money starts rolling in. People start buying those something specials. Weather begins to change. Events get planned. I get work on all fronts. 

I need to start saying no to things I guess. I don’t like to because of money. But once i have a shop / gallery /office, maybe it will be a time to be more selective.

So sleepy. South Park take me away…